Dramatic Difference Between Mature and Fetal Brains - New Findings of Inmed's Researchers - Important Clinical Implications

The Mediterranean Institute of Neurobiology, Marseilles, France; Neuroscience Center at Dartmouth, USA. The discovery of unexpected specifics of fetal neurons showed the dangers of many drugs formerly considered safe for pregnant women.

(PRWEB) May 27, 2005 -- The Mediterranean Institute of Neurobiology, Marseilles, France; Neuroscience Center at Dartmouth, USA. The discovery of unexpected specifics of fetal neurons showed the dangers of many drugs formerly considered safe for pregnant women.

This problem is in need of a serious introduction. We know of many examples of pairs that are inevitably polar by nature in our Universe: good and evil, plus and minus in electric conductors, South and North of permanent magnets, to name just a few. Any control process, in order to function smoothly, must sustain a constant interplay of those polar pairs. The brain is no exception... with the exception of a fetal brain.

In mature brain, one of the polar pairs is 'excitatory vs. inhibitory' processes and substances providing transmission of nerve signals from neuron to neuron. Gamma-Aminobutiric acid, GABA, is the dominating inhibitory neurotransmitter. In mature brain, that is.

Recently, it became evident that in fetal brain, GABA acts in a completely opposite way and is an excitatory neurotransmitter! Now imagine what happens when a pregnant woman is taking a medicine targeting GABA-neurons (for instance, anxiolythics or anti-epileptic medicine) and this medicine also gets into her unborn baby's brain: the baby's brain reaction would be over-excitation, which is directly opposite of its inhibitory effect on the mother -- and what was intended as good for the woman can be completely hazardous for the foetus.

This is a very likely scenario because GABA controls many extremely important brain functions, and no wonder that it is the target of many neurological drugs, including tranquilizers and anti-epileptic medicines. As it turns out, during epilepsies the adult brain displays reversal of GABA function, similar to fetal brain.

To make things worse, the over-excitation of the fetal neurons can cause irreversible abnormalities in the very matter of the developing brain, partly due to disoriented movements of the cells which in normal conditions would orderly move to their assigned places to form normal brain structures.

The authors of review titled "The multiple facets of gamma-aminobutyric acid dysfunction in epilepsy", Y. Ben-Ari and G. L. Holmes concluded that the use of some medicines by pregnant women "...may lead to deleterious consequences when they are taken during the period when GABA is the main excitatory transmitter. Because neuronal activity alters important cell functions, including migration and morphogenesis, aberrant excessive excitation may lead to profound deleterious consequences." -- Current Opinion in Neurology 2005

More information in English: http://inmednet.com/Research.html

http://inmednet.com/2005-conference.html

In French:

http://officialinmed.com/Discoveries-fr.html

http://officialinmed.com/conferences-fr.html

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